I probably should have known better, but in devoting 750 words to an op-ed in the Boston Globe about the special election in Somerville, Medford, Winchester, and Woburn, I managed tomake a few sins of omission.
The primary things that were left on the cutting room floor, but should not have been, are twofold:
* I should no doubt have found a way to include also arguably the most prominent Democratic blogging site, Blue Mass. Group, which had a great deal of terrific coverage of, and associated commentary about, the race, recapped here. I chose one independent blogger, Frederick Clarkson, whose commentary I followed in the special election, and whose efforts merited inclusion — but so too did the efforts of several others, most notably Blue Mass. Group. So, apologies to the many others (including sco) who blogged or commented on the race and whose contributions I did not call out. The point was just to celebrate the conversation that this group of people has been involved in and to urge politicians to engage more deeply and effectively with it.
* A few people wrote to me to say that I should have mentioned that former Rep. Joe Mackey also had a website. I see their point: my op-ed, with trimmed words a bit too carefully chosen, implied that only Pat Jehlen had a website and that her three opponents did not. That wasn’t my point. I was making the argument that a “simple search” (try this, or this, for instance, which may change, and probably will — even by virtue of my own links and those of others, that will drive up his site’s PageRank) in Google turned up only Rep. Jehlen’s site, which is true. I actually made a few other simple searches, which also did not turn up former Rep. Mackey’s site. My searches included a search string “Joe Mackey State Senate” which would seem to be well-targeted to retrieve his site. Rep. Mackey did indeed have one, and surely he and his supporters deserve credit for it. My point was only to say that a casual observer, as most voters are for most elections, who went online to find out information about the race would most likely have found most information about Rep. Jehlen, and much less about the three other (quite strong) candidates for state Senate. Apologies, too, for misleading some readers.
(Score another one for having a blog in addition to a mainstream press: being able to admit to such sins and having a place to set out the record a bit more clearly, if only in retrospect.)
John Palfrey 